Rating: 
Summary: Better than Rings...
Review: Wow, I must congratulate Mr Stanek. Never have I before read a series so great! It never gets boring. The story continues and i'd say equally good in the first 3 books. If a sixth star was on the rating list, it would be on my score. This book is one of a kind. Not only does Stanek write wonderfull fantasy, he uses dramatic and mind bogling scenes that make you want to devoure the whole book without stopping. This book is truly one of the best fantasy books.
Rating:
Summary: Read it
Review: Wicked, wicked, wicked! It left me so that I couldnt not breathe waiting for the next installment. I was so happy to find #2 and #3 were avaible. Now I'm stuck waiting for #4. It's pure agony, on agony. I'm begging author to write faster. Please...
Rating:
Summary: this book kicks some major [booty]
Review: Im so glad I read this book. It's so wonderful, and so different from everything else. Its a book for anyone. The characters are wonderfully diverse, from Galan, to Vilmos, my favorite character because of his frightening past but good heart. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Kingdoms and the Elves
Review: (...)I bought The Kingdom of the Elves and the Reaches (Book 1) and The Elf Queen and the King (Book 1) thinking they were the first books in two separate trilogies. Not so. Whole pages of these two books are exactly the same and appear to be a continuation of an earlier story. Examination of previous reviews leads me to think these books may be a continuation of Keeper Martin's Tale, but I don't plan to find out. I wouldn't touch another Robert Stanek book with a stick. ...
Rating:
Summary: Emily's Review
Review: The Kingdoms and the Elves is the first book in a series of wonderfully created fantasy books by Robert Stanek. It has everything that you could want in a fantasy-based storyline. Many charactors that have good detail into there lives but not so much that you can't remember who is who, who did what, and what is what. Keeper Martin's Tales series is one of the best fantasy series you may ever possibly read. It is the best I've read.
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Summary: awesome book!!!
Review: I thought this book was great. Adrina and Valam are grat! I thought Emel was a great comic relief. Vilmos has so much to learn about himself, the kingdoms, his friends, and his enemies. I give this book 4 thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Wanted: A Good Editor
Review: This book was a big disappointment. ... Though Stanek has some interesting ideas, the story drags and his writing style is in need of some serious help. ... his use of idioms is so strange. Even my children (ages 11 - 15) noticed. For example: "She flushed white." Typos abound. I lost count of how many times I read "lead" where it should have been "led." "Bear" instead of "bare". In no way does this book rival "Harry Potter". ...
Rating:
Summary: Fun adventure with great new friends!
Review: I loved this book so much. I had to comment on a previous review from someone who claimed to be a Harry Potter reader but didn't like this book and went on to say a bunch of nasty things.First, the plot is excellent. I wonder if the person read books with multiple plots before? I love the way some author move back and forth between characters. I love the way Stanek does this too. Second, the descriptions are too good. In scene after scene I felt like a whole world was coming to life. I like that there isn't too much detail and not too little either. The characters are described to give pictures in my mind. I like to fill in a few blanks. It'd be borind to read hundreds of pages of descriptions. Many great authors rely on readers to fill in some blanks, JRR Tolkien for one. His description of balrogs left everything to the imagination and it worked great. He did this for many characters too. Stanek does well at letting your imagination work and providing what's needed too. Third, the book's structure is nice. The person obviously never really read Harry Potter. The formatting described IS the Harry Potter formatting. The Harry Potter hardcovers have wide margins, double spacing and larger than average fonts. Because I know I'm right, I measured the Harry Potter margins. All my Harry Potter hard covers have 1 and 1/8 inch top and bottom margins and 7/8 inch left and right margins. The font size says it's 12 at the back of the books but it looks like 14 least ways to me. The Kingdoms and Elves books I read have pages a bit bigger than the harry hardcovers. About 1/4 inch taller and wider. The margins are smaller and the fonts are smaller too. The pages are beautifully laid out with bold headings and footings that have engravings on either side. Looks very nice. Most books are very plain compared to that.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and imaginative!
Review: Some stories move you in ways that you can't explain, and they hook you, drawing you deep into the story. These are the stories that become classics, like CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia or JK Rowling's Harry Potter. These are the stories that you cherish and read again and again. So yes, of course, I was delighted to find the Robert Stanek's works were this type of story and equally delighted when I discovered there were two equally riveting paths through this world. In fact, before reading Ruin Mist Chronicles, I had never heard such a thing.
Inside the pages of this book, I discovered an entire world (Robert Stanek's world of Ruin Mist) and characters who instantly became like old friends: Seth, Galan, Vilmos, Adrina, Valam, Xith and more. The wonder is that all these characters seem real, certainly multi-dimensional, and their words/actions ring true to the history that the author lays down for them.
Rest assured, this isn't your run of the mill fantasy epic, this is a grand journey on the scale of Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, yet with the light-hand and fun that made JK Rowling's Harry Potter so utterly popular. I highly recommend The Kingdoms & The Elves and any of works by this author. You'll love it, I don't see how you could do otherwise.
Incidentally, if you are wondering whehter to read The Kingdoms & The Elves first or The Elf Queen and the King, I'd recommend starting with The Kingdoms & The Elves.
Rating: 
Summary: Should appeal to readers with good imaginations...
Review: ...since you'll have to imagine it's well written. I bought this book ... and boy am I frustrated. I was hoping for something to fill the void until the next Harry Potter, and that's sure not this book. Here's what drove me crazy, in no particular order.
-The plot is disjointed, since there are at least three separate story lines maintained throughout the book. I spent the first part of each new section trying to figure out the subject.
-Descriptions are sketchy at best, and often completely absent. Sure, he tells you how bad the swamp smells, but not one of the main characters was described well enough for me to picture, and forget the peripheral ones. Mr. Stanek has some interesting concepts, such as a race with no set gender. But he doesn't give you enough info on that character to be able to tell anything else about him. -The format of the book is irritating, wtih huge margins, really wide double spacing, and a larger than average font. It made me feel like the story had been streeetched to fill up the 226 pages.
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